Viewing page 308 of 484

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

The EDGES Group, Inc.

Presents Clarence Thomas

Chairman, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Clarence Thomas was designated chairman of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission by President Ronald Reagan following Senate confirmation of Mr. Thomas' nomination as a commissioner on May 6, 1982. His term expires July 1, 1986.

Prior to joining the Commission, Mr. Thomas, a graduate of Yale Law School (JD degree, 1974), served for almost a year as the assistant secretary for civil rights in the U.S. Department of Education. Before that, he was a legislative assistant to Senator John C. Danforth (R-MO) for a year and a half. His responsibilities were in the areas of energy, the environment and public works projects. 

Mr. Thomas' career as a lawyer extends beyond the legislative and Federal levels of government to both the private sector and state law enforcement. As an attorney for two years at the Monsanto Company prior to coming to Washington, D.C., in 1979, Mr. Thomas monitored a variety of Federal regulations and handled antitrust, bankruptcy and product liability matters for the large international petrochemical company.

His first three years after law school were spent as assistant attorney general of Missouri. He was responsible for representing Lincoln University, a traditionally black institution operated by the state, the State Tax Commission and several divisions of Missouri's Department of Revenue. Mr. Thomas also argued some 40 cases for the state before the appellate courts and Supreme Court of Missouri. 

A Savannah, Georgia, native and graduate of the College of Holy Cross (Worcester, MA; BA degree, 1971), where he serves on the Board of Trustees, Mr. Thomas is the eighth chairman of the Commission since the agency began operations in July 1965.

[[image - CLARENCE THOMAS]] 

[[images - scenes from the meeting]]

306